52 Reasons To Jam A Fork In Your Eye - 2 of 2

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40. Billy Bob (1-2 Players) - 2/10
Once again, another game that just screams potential has been muffled by the dummies responsible for Action 52. Billy Bob tries to play like the old Prince of Persia games...The keyword there is ‘tries’. The common theme of random hazards in Action 52 once again appears here, giving you cheap deaths galore. It’s not uncommon to be climbing up a wall just as a spear or rock spawns right above you on the ceiling so just as the animation of you climbing is finished, you get to see an animation of you dying. The controls are alright until you have to jump...Jumping and moving at the same time is like how it is in most of the platformers in Action 52; a lottery. You can press a directional and the jump button at the same time...That doesn’t mean your character is going to jump anywhere but straight up. The random enemies and poor jumping mechanics make this game far more difficult than it needs to be. This game could have been decent...But Action 52 has dropped the ball once again with poor programming.

41. City of Doom (1-2 Players) - 2/10
What did I just play? That’s what I was asking myself after playing City of Doom. How a man climbing a building constitutes a city full of doom is beyond me. But anyway, it’s another shooting game. You control a guy as he climbs a building and shoots at stuff. But look out, he’s right-handed so if an enemy is coming your way and is more on your left, you’re not going to hit him and he’s going to hurt you. Oh yeah, and don’t touch a window – instant death. On top of the poor, cheap gameplay, this game has the absolute worst soundtrack I’ve heard so far on the game. Imagine taking Alvin and the Chipmunks and raking their teeth along a chalkboard as they sing...Then you’re beginning to understand the horrors of the music in this game. Bad gameplay, bad music, bad choice.

42. Bits and Pieces (1-2 Players) - 3/10
Bits and Pieces is one of the better platformer games in Action 52...But that’s not saying much. In this game you control someone that looks like Grandpa Munster and you jump over Universal Monster look-alikes like Mummys, Wolfmen, and Creatures from the Black Lagoon. You have no attacks at your disposal...All you do is jump over them or on top of them. The old random problem is back...But not quite as bad as in other games...Sometimes so many random enemies will appear that it’s impossible to jump over them all. However, since one hit doesn’t kill you, it’s not as annoying as it is in other Action 52 games. This is another game that could have been made fun with minor adjustments...But alas, it’s garbage.

43. Beeps and Blips (1-2 Players) - 4/10
The saddest part about this game is that it actually seems as if the developers actually tried to make it good. It has some neat ideas in it, but ultimately, it’s like most of the other Action 52 shooters; awful. Shooting is terrible due to awful controls...You’ll have to click the direction that you want to fire twice before you’ll actually start shooting in that direction. On top of that, most of the enemies are of no real threat. Some of them will fire at you, but it’s easily dodged. Your only real threat is accidentally running into one while you try to fire at another one. Though, in later stages the enemies do become more ruthless and a few will actually follow you around, which is a nice surprise of a challenge. The one good idea they had was the ‘1up’ bars you collect. By collecting these, your ship can take more hits before dying. While they’re really only needed due to the poor controls in firing at other ships, the fact that the developers actually tried to add a little depth to this title impresses me. Keep in mind, this still isn’t a good game...But that little attempt at innovation and the enemies in the later stages that actually pose as a challenge help prevent it from being absolutely awful.

44. Manchester (1-2 Players) - 4/10
Ever want to hear an annoying tune play every time you jump? Me neither. Apparently the developers of this game did, though. Manchester is another poor platformer. I guess you’re supposed to be distracted by the jumping music so that you don’t realize that the game controls poorly. But, she does. On top of that, there’s interesting glitches...Like how you can’t walk through the music note blocks in the beginning...and then later in the level, you suddenly can. Or like how falling into a pit can allow you to jump into the ground and walk underneath all the danger above. I really don’t have a whole lot else to say about Manchester except don’t play it.

45. Boss (1-2 Players) - 4/10
You play as a frog/lizard/guy with green skin and you shoot other frogs/lizards/guys with green skin while trying to avoid bombs being dropped by giant hands sticking out of windows. That pretty much sums it up. The controls feel bad, but they’re do-able. The worst part of the game, though, are the gaps. You’ll get gaps from time to time where you’re running for a few seconds with absolutely nothing happening. If this was an intense game and you needed a breather, that’d be fine...But this is a lame and tame game...These gaps just make it worse. Still, though, even with these faults the game is one of the better Action 52 titles...But that isn’t much of a compliment.

46. Dedant (1-2 Players) - 1/10
Why? Why in the world would you program enemies to fire to the left and right when your character is never able to be on their left or right? In Dedant you control an ant...You can only move left and right, you can’t go anywhere else. You enemies can go all over the place, and they can fire at you....But most of the time, they’ll be in the middle or top of the screen firing to the left or right. I know this is Action 52, a collection of 52 of the worst games ever made...But c’mon. It’d be nice if they had put at least a little bit of time and effort into this to make it somewhat challenging. It’s boring, it’s broken, it’s bad....Stay away from Dedant.

47. Hambo’s Adventures (1-2 Players) - 0/10
Random cheapness strikes again. Hambo’s Adventures is another bad platforming game that gives the player poor jumping mechanics to jump over enemies and random, cheap deaths. Enemies spawn at random places in the level, which will sometimes make the level impossible to complete...And since you only have one life (though you can collect 1ups to get more), if you happen to be doing well and come across an area that’s impossible to pass because of poor placement of the randomly spawned enemies, it’s game over...Not because you did badly but because the game is a cheap jerk. I won’t even start to get into the anger I felt from the extremely cheap deaths of spawning enemies on top of you as the level begins. Because of the poor controls and cheap deaths, Hambo’s Adventures will likely enrage you instead of making you feel like you’re having a good time. Hambo is one pig that I’d gladly watch get turned into bacon...and his game may be the absolute, single worst game that I have ever played.

48. Time Warp Tickers (1-2 Players) - 1/10
You’re a pair of fingers...and you flick stuff or jump over them. Well, that’s what’s supposed to happen anyway so long as when you press a button it triggers the action. For some reason, there are sometimes delays in the game as if it’s trying to figure out if you actually pressed a button or not. It’s not fun times. Time Warp Tickers also suffers from the ever-popular random enemies problem, though not as badly as some other games. There really isn’t much else to add...It’s bad. Avoid it.

49. Jigsaw (1-2 Players) - 4/10
Jigsaw is surprisingly not completely terrible. It has the normal flaws like glitches, poor control, and random enemies...But it’s somewhat playable. I think it was the inspiration for the Super NES not-so-classic Home Improvement game. But anyway, it looks bland and plays bad...But it’s still better than most of the other poo you’ll find in this awful compilation.

50. Ninja Assault (1-2 Players) - 1/10
A blind person could beat this game with ease. Hold down the left directional button and tap the A button repeatedly...You’ve won the game. There is no challenge here....It’s a VERY poorly done beat-em-up that only has one entertaining aspect to it – the poorly done “Hya!” sounds you hear when you hit things. However, the novelty of those awesomely bad sound effects doesn’t last long before you’re bored out of your mind from mashing buttons. Ninja Assault is yet another game that you need to avoid in the awful world of Action 52.

51. Robbie and the Robots (1-2 Players) - 3/10
The first level of Robbie and the Robots is pathetically easy...Just run and shoot. Nothing will touch you and you’ll kill everything. The second level, thankfully, makes things more challenging by adding holes to fall into...But unfortunately, it almost makes it too difficult since there are robots on the walls firing at you. It’s hard to avoid the bullets and make the jumps you need to make at the same time...Too hard. If the developers had just evened out the difficulty, this game might actually be fun...But instead it goes from insanely easy to frustratingly hard. As it is, it’s alright in comparison to other Action 52 games....But it’s still pretty awful compared to nearly every other game out there.

52. Cheetah Men/Action Gamemaster (1-2 Players) - 5/10
Cheetah Men or Action Gamemaster (I guess the developers couldn’t decide on a name so they used both) is the grand finale of Action 52...It starts with a cut-scene intro that you can’t skip and then the game begins...And it begins poorly. The controls are bad, the animation is bad, and the gameplay is boring. As you advance, though, the game gets better....Not a lot better, but a little better. The game also recycles enemies from the fifty-one other games you may or may not have played, so you get to beat up those once invisible Sadam Husseins that bothered you in Storm Over the Desert along the way, so that’s kinda neat. Cheetah Men obviously had a lot of attention put on it...Which is why I can’t understand how it’s still as bad as it is. Granted, it’s easily one of the top five games in Action 52...But if you’ve read the reviews for each game, that’s not saying a whole lot. Cheetah Men was obviously the pride and joy of the folks who made Action 52...With that being said, I think it’s safe to assume that the developers who made these games have no pride and have never experienced joy.

OVERALL
Action 52 has a reputation of being one of the worst cartridges available on the Nintendo entertainment system...It’s a reputation that it easily lives up to. Even the best games in this compilation are barely passable. Every single game in the cartridge suffers from choppiness and most of them suffer from glitching....And these problems can range from barely noticeable to frustratingly blatant depending on the game. Several games had obvious potential to be good...But Active Enterprises managed to screw them all up. The poor graphics and sound could have easily been overlooked if they had fun gameplay backing them up. However, with the gameplay as horrible as it is, the bad graphics and sound almost feel like the publisher was rubbing salt in the wounds of those who played their games.

Action 52 is a rare, valuable game...It’s worth a purchase for collectors that are looking to own every NES game ever made. However, the average gamer should breathe a sigh of relief that this game is difficult to come across; it lessens the chances of you having to deal with the pain that it brings.

*NOTE* I wrote this years ago for my website, which is currently down. Should I decide to resurrect the site and you read this there, you'll notice different scores. I score on a 0.5 scale for my website. Since Listal uses a different rating system, I modified the scores for each game to match the system here...Otherwise, the review is unchanged, including the videos I nearly lost my sanity making for this review. Hope you enjoyed 'em as much as I suffered making 'em hehe. Oh, and also, this review was too large to fit in one review, as Listal cut half of the text from my original review when I published it. So, that's the reason for this review being published in two parts. Anyway, that's all I've got. Thanks for reading the review, including this rambling non-review stuff down here. Take care.